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Topic: Naming a critter (Read 4097 times)

Cymothoa exigua, or the tongue-eating louse, is a parasitic crustacean of the family Cymothoidae. This parasite enters fish through the gills, and then attaches itself at the base of the fish's tongue. The female attaches to the tongue and the male attaches on the gill arches beneath and behind the female. Females are 8–29 millimetres (0.3–1.1 in) long and 4–14 mm (0.16–0.55 in) in maximum width. Males are approximately 7.5–15 mm (0.3–0.6 in) long and 3–7 mm (0.12–0.28 in) wide.[1] The parasite destroys the fish's tongue, and then attaches itself to the stub of what was once its tongue and becomes the fish's new tongue.

Don't google image search that if you want to sleep soundly.

So, inspired by this ... thing, I had an idea for one that is for humans and crossed with that snail eye-stalk parasite. I need help with a name. I dunno if I want it to be demonic, insectile, from beyond the nether realms, but it needs a good name. Obviously it's rare, very rare and poorly studied, so it should have some sort of official clinical sounding name that's not nearly as terrifying as the thing itself. I just can't come up with anything subtle enough to let you know it's not good, but leave you with no idea of just how bad it really is.

You can go with some simple Latin-sounding name (because I don't know if it's proper Latin):

Metalingua extrema - it means "next to the tongue", and the "extrema" part is to show that it removes the tongue at the end. It doesn't let out much of the effect, only that it may be connected to the tongue or language.

Let the players/characters be the first to ever encounter the beast. No one has ever seen it before (and lived to tell about it.) So let them be the explorers that get to name it. Maybe even have an NPC ask them, "What in the name of all that's sane do you call that?" If they kill one or more of them, let the scholarly type character bring back a few samples, the barbaric character might take a trophy, that sort of thing. Back in the city they can even be approached about it for information by a sage or a bard or such. We're talking great plot hook potential here.